


Both a Beginning and an End

by warriorpoet



Category: Fake News RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Community: fakenews_fanfic, Infidelity, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:52:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorpoet/pseuds/warriorpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon never wanted to be like his father. Stephen never wanted to be in Los Angeles. That didn't stop either from happening. (AU where Jon and Stephen's 2002 sitcom project was picked up)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Both a Beginning and an End

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a FNFF Secret Santa gift for lunchboxghost, who asked for something inspired by the songs "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" and "Grapevine Fires" by Death Cab for Cutie.

Stephen liked to talk, but more than that, Jon liked to hear it. Stephen talked over coffee and late nights, quick lunches and the occasional Friday afternoon beer. He talked about when he was a kid, when his home was whole and he was nothing but everybody's baby brother, about memories he could never be sure were entirely his own. He was always vague about his childhood after it entered the double digits, and the stories of his early teenage years. He spared Jon the tragedy, spared himself the sympathy.

Things changed as the months passed since they had met. It happened so slowly they didn't notice, until it happened all of a sudden and it was all they could see, all they could feel, all they could breathe. Jon fell in love with the movement of Stephen's hands, the light in his eyes. Stephen fell in love with Jon's quick transitions from agitated restlessness to intense focus, his slow, crooked smile.

It surprised them both on the night they first kissed, less so minutes later when they found themselves sharing one side of the couch in Jon's office, pants open and legs tangled, hands fumbling over each other as they kissed again, and again. 

They were close, and wanted to be closer. It was a misfire, a skipped step in the process that their bodies got there before the rest of them did. That night, Stephen's eyes were closed and Jon's mouth was set in a grim line.

Even then, they knew that this could not end well.

Their words soon caught up with their bodies, and then Stephen was speaking softly in the dark, his voice catching on the difficult parts, Jon's hand over his heart while he stared up at the ceiling. The window blinds in Jon's office cut the street light to stripes, and they lay naked on the couch, a blanket loose around their hips.

Stephen still kept a stockpile of his happy memories for those times when he could tell that Jon needed to sleep. He'd just talk, concentrating on keeping the rhythm of his voice slow and steady, soothing, focusing on making sound rather than words. He'd keep going until Jon's head was heavy against his chest, his tired smile faded and the perpetual furrow of his brow relaxed. Then Stephen's words would taper off, murmured low in his throat as he lightly kissed the top of Jon's head, falling silent as Jon sighed in his sleep. 

Often on nights like that, they didn't make it home, elaborate excuses left in twin voicemail messages time stamped a few minutes to midnight.

*

The idea started as just another elaborate excuse, a way for them to stay at work long after they had run out of work to do. 

Stephen talked, and Jon listened. He let the words fall over him, arms open, trying to catch everything he could in the palms of his hands, turn it, shape it, throw it back to Stephen and watch him bat it effortlessly into the air. Back and forth, watching it grow. Stephen's enthusiasm, the joy he found in possibility, made Jon's heart beat faster, his head feel lighter. It was a contact high that he couldn't help but keep seeking.

Jon began to rent a hotel suite on a week-to-week basis. He was finally at that stage where he'd gotten used to having money to spend. It wasn't sitting in the bank anymore, or stitched into his mattress with the fear that he was about to get fired at any second. He was still restrained, though, no extravagant purchases. Only those three rooms, a transient, temporary space where he and Stephen would build some things up and tear others down. Over and over. Week-to-week.

There was work done, sometimes, each night starting out with the best of intentions. They sat closer together than was necessary for a king sized bed, backs against the headboard. Jon would think out loud as he watched Stephen's face bathed in the white light from his laptop screen, his mouth curved in the hint of a smile. Jon studied Stephen's hands as he typed, his fingers graceful in fits and starts, playing the letters like an instrument. It took him a moment to notice what was out of place, to notice there was no glint of gold in the dim light, only a pale indentation where Stephen's ring should be.

Jon closed his eyes against the sight, the constriction in his chest and throat. He wondered what it meant for him that he was so moved by the gesture. He wondered what it meant for Stephen that he'd done it at all. He wanted to tell Stephen to leave, to put his wedding ring back where it belonged, to go home to his family, back where he belonged. 

"Jon."

He'd stopped speaking mid-thought and Stephen had noticed, had seen his gaze drawn to that bare finger, had seen him force the sight away. Jon's eyes met Stephen's, and Stephen's flickered away, downcast, an apologetic twist of his mouth. 

"Don't say anything. It's okay," Stephen murmured. He turned his attention back to the computer screen, frowning at it.

To silence himself, Jon reached for Stephen, fingers spanning the side of his face, turning him to kiss. Stephen grunted in surprise, and made a valiant attempt to save the computer from being pinned between them as Jon pressed against him, lowering him to the bed.

On nights like that, Jon would get home in the lost hours that aren't quite night, and aren't quite morning. Sometimes he'd find his wife on the couch or in bed, the lights or the television still on, her sleep-limp fingers marking the place in her book where she'd given up on waiting for him. He'd think of Stephen, sneaking in past his children's bedrooms, twisting his ring back into place before slipping into bed beside his wife, slipping back into place.

Jon would shower again for the second time that night under water hotter than he could stand, and avoid looking in the mirror as he left the bathroom.

*

They spurred each other on. The idea became a treatment which became a pitch which became a script, then several more. Neither man slept much, some reasons different, some the same. Stephen threw himself into his family in the time he spent with them to attempt to make up for the time he didn't. At night he retreated, tried to write alone, found that he couldn't without Jon. 

Jon started getting the word out about the project, knew he couldn't keep it to himself. He owed it to Stephen to not keep it to himself. He knew there had to be purpose in how they spent so many of their nights, had to justify it to himself.

If something good could come of it, maybe they could live with themselves.

So Jon didn't sleep, and Stephen didn't sleep, and when they were sealed in their twenty-fourth floor bubble with Broadway humming on mute below them, they fucked with the curtains open and felt no guilt for half an hour.

Afterward, they lay together, not sleeping together. Both knowing it, neither wanting to say it.

Eventually, Jon couldn't stop himself.

"This isn't – we're not going to be able to keep this up. Are we?"

Stephen turned on his side, brushed his lips against Jon's shoulder. "Not indefinitely, no. I don't see how we could."

Jon could. He could see the shamefaced confessions, the fights and the silence, the choked-up apologies and more silence. He tried to let his mind fade to black when it came to Stephen's children, too young to understand what was happening, old enough to know that something was wrong.

He cared for Stephen, he loved him. But it was in a reckless and selfish way, not the right way. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to keep resentment away, to stop them from turning on themselves and each other. To keep them from getting disappointed when this was all they were left with, an affair that had to somehow become a relationship. Jon would fall out of love with Stephen for being the kind of man who would leave his children for someone else. Stephen would fall out of love with Jon for being that someone else, for turning him into that kind of man.

On the surface they'd shoulder the blame, share it between them, build their house on an unsteady foundation of guilt. But to themselves, in the chambers of their heart that rationality couldn't reach, they'd start to turn, to free themselves, pushing it off on the other. The house sinking on one side, cracks running up the walls until it was just another broken home.

"Jon?" Stephen's voice had an edge of concern, and he spoke quickly. "I'm not saying that I think we should end this now. I mean, I… I don't think I could, if I wanted to. I don't…" 

Stephen's hand moved over Jon's chest, molded to the curve of his shoulder and tightened like a fist. "I need this. You. I need you," he finished.

Jon's heart swelled as his stomach turned. He touched Stephen's collarbone, his jaw, his temple, and kissed him. "Me too," he said.

Stephen spoke against Jon's skin. "I've been trying to figure it out and… I don't know _why_ , but…"

"Hey. We don't – you don't have to do this. It's okay. I know."

"So, you just don't want to talk about it?" Stephen said with a chuckle.

"I mean… what can we say? Really. What is there to say?"

Stephen nodded slightly, his hair brushing against Jon's jaw, tickling him. "I don't know."

They were silent for a moment before it was Stephen's turn to break it.

"I should… we should probably both…"

"Yeah." Jon disentangled himself from their embrace and sat at the edge of the bed, ran his hands through his hair. He reached for his boxers, and Stephen spoke from behind him.

"You want to shower – "

"No, go ahead. You – you've got a longer trip. You need to get going."

Jon heard the bathroom door clicking shut, the sound of the water running. He was suddenly gripped by Stephen's absence, the need to apologize for something, he wasn't sure what, but he couldn't leave the night as it was. He circled the bed, and went to the bathroom door. He met resistance; the door rattled on its hinges but didn't budge. Locked.

He dressed, and when Stephen returned with his hand in his pocket, Jon knew that he was compulsively checking that his wedding ring was there, its smooth ridges cutting into his palm in reassurance. Jon smiled at him tightly, and said nothing.

Stephen pulled his hand from his pocket and touched Jon's arm. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah," Jon said, his voice breaking. He cleared his throat. "Get home safe."

Stephen's hand fell away, went back to his pocket. He nodded.

Jon didn't watch as Stephen left the suite, only heard another door close. He sat on the edge of the bed again and tried to remember a time when he wasn't the kind of man who would be sitting in a hotel room with the sound of his lover's departure echoing around him as he readied himself to go back to his wife. He was sure that such a time had existed, but it felt like this is how it always was, and always would be.

*

The calls from Burbank expressing interest were like the relief of an illuminated exit sign in a burning building.

Jon jumped on the prospect, didn't balk at the idea of basing production in Los Angeles. They wanted Jon to stay involved; they knew Jon had to stay in New York. If he'd pushed, they probably would have brought it up as a negotiating point.

He didn't push.

*

The bottom fell out when the deal went through.

In Jon's office, they toasted each other with lukewarm coffee. "Congratulations," Jon said.

"You too. And thank you." Stephen drank and pulled a face. "Ugh. We have got to do something better than this to celebrate."

"Oh, we will," Jon said with a wink.

Stephen laughed quickly, then his features shifted, pensive, chewing his lip. "So… it had to go to LA, huh?"

Jon nodded. "I tried, man. They wouldn't budge. It would've been a deal breaker." 

Stephen studied Jon's posture, tried to read the lines of his shoulders and the bow of his head like they were tea leaves. "We could always sell the thing without me attached as an actor. Just produce it. Write from here. I could stay here."

"Ten minutes in and already you're getting cold feet? C'mon. This is your baby. Your _vehicle_. Custom made to all your specs. You're not shitcanning this thing now," Jon said with a wary half smile.

Stephen chuckled weakly. He couldn't tell whether it felt more like he was being pushed or pulled away. He shook his head. "I better go make some calls."

"Yeah, sure."

"So… tonight?"

"Same bat-time same bat-channel," Jon said.

Stephen nodded on his way out the door, and Jon closed and locked it behind him. They each called their wives, and acted like this was a good thing, and everything was fine.

*

Soon Stephen was gone a lot. Sometimes Jon went with him, but most of the time he didn't. He told Stephen that it was his thing; he didn't need Jon getting in there and screwing it up. Stephen countered that it never would've happened without Jon. That he should finish what they both started.

They argued in lowered voices, made up with their hands and mouths. 

*

When they slept together for the last time, Stephen knelt over Jon and slowly guided him inside. Jon gripped Stephen's thighs as Stephen rocked back against him. He tried to lift his hips from the bed, to thrust up, but Stephen's weight held him down. Stephen was calling the shots now. Jon moved his hands, began to gently tug at Stephen's erection as he moved. 

Stephen's eyes closed and his head dropped back. He gasped, and Jon adjusted his grip, tighter, slower, the method familiar now, a sequence of movement that had permeated his bones. 

"Wait, no. Jon. Stop," Stephen said, pulling Jon's hands away, pinning his wrists to the bed as he leaned forward. The shift in Stephen's weight allowed Jon to thrust, and he did, but again Stephen said, "Wait."

Stephen leaned back again, the movement of his hips slow and subtle. Jon clenched his jaw and waited, staring up at him expectantly. 

"If there was any way to stay, I would," he said finally. "I need you to know that."

"You know I did everything I could, right?" Jon said.

Stephen's only answer was release Jon's hands, lean down, and kiss him. 

Jon wrapped his arms around him, his hips rising off the bed quickly. Stephen moaned into his mouth. 

"This isn't over," Jon said.

Stephen laughed, and it almost sounded like a sob. "In some ways, I kinda wish it could be."

Jon smiled crookedly and pushed Stephen's hair back off his forehead. "Yeah."

Their mouths met again in apologies and accusations, all the things they couldn't say. The rest of their bodies joined in as words failed them for the first time in a long time. Jon's hand worked between them, back to Stephen's erection, taking it in a slow twist that matched the pace of Stephen's rise and fall over Jon's cock. 

Stephen pulled his mouth from Jon's, and kissed across his chest. As Stephen came, his mouth latched onto Jon's shoulder. Jon felt the sting of Stephen's teeth, the vibrations of a muffled sob, and the pulses of semen on his skin.

The bite would leave a red welt, the hint of a bruise. Jon didn't go shirtless for a week, and when his wife asked why, he made a half-hearted joke about all the free donuts at work taking their toll. He couldn't quite meet her eyes. 

*

Stephen flew to Los Angeles for the last time alone, going to meet his family, to start their new life. He felt like he was starting with nothing, having left all the interesting parts of himself in a hotel suite twenty-four floors over Broadway, lost under the bed like loose change. 

He dozed with his head against the window, his mind wandering into darker places where he felt like that's all he was, just clutter, hidden away, out of sight, out of mind. Everything would be all right again now. They could start being honest again, start sleeping again. He and Jon could go back to just being collaborators, colleagues, nothing like what they were, what they never should have let themselves become.

But he had no idea how to make a new start when he'd be spending his days with Jon's words in his mouth.

Stephen jolted awake when he felt like he was falling.

*

Jon clutched the phone to his ear, one hand tight on the receiver, the other dipping into his pants. Stephen's compressed voice seemed unreal, too distant to have any effect. For all the talking they'd ever done, talking about fucking was one subject that never came up. They had just fucked, curtains open and nobody watching, because to talk about it was to acknowledge it, to acknowledge it was to have to deal with it, to have to deal with it was to be honest, and that was something they couldn't do.

Jon tugged roughly at his cock, frustrated. 

He couldn't do this anymore.

That was the point, wasn't it? That was why Stephen was gone, wasn't it?

"Stephen," he said. 

Stephen paused. "This isn't working." A statement, not a question.

"No."

"Okay."

"I'm… sorry, this – I didn't think it'd be so –"

"Yeah, no, I understand. Me too," Stephen said quickly.

They were uncomfortably silent for a moment. Jon zipped his pants up, hoping Stephen wouldn't hear it. He cleared his throat. "So, ah. How's the weather?"

Stephen snorted. "Really? We've really come to this? Already? Jesus."

Jon laughed too. "No, seriously though. How is it out there?"

"It's good," Stephen said slowly, and Jon could tell he was carefully choosing his words. "It's an adjustment, obviously. In a lot of ways. But… it's good."

There was no way Jon could be sure, but he suspected it was the first time that Stephen had ever lied to him.

He let it go, didn't press the issue. Didn't offer to go out there during his next break, to be with him under the guise of 'just checking in'. 

Jon knew it was not the first time he had let Stephen down.

They said goodnight with a continent between them, and didn't speak again for weeks.

*

Stephen had his life and Jon had his, and soon it became rare that the two ever intersected.

Stephen was isolated, exhausted, rapidly losing his drive for the work, the only remaining product of their affair. He alternated between hating Jon, missing Jon, and hating himself for missing Jon. 

He worked. He kept working. He didn't know what else to do. The critics loved the show but nobody was watching. He held his breath and every week waited to hear that the plug was being pulled. The entire city began to feel to him like one giant hotel room – transient, temporary space, a place where things happened that didn't matter in the real world. He doubted he could ever go back to New York, bridges blazing behind him.

Jon called a few times, attempted a pep talk, floated some ideas. Stephen would pace his trailer as they talked, pass the mirror and be startled by the movement of his own reflection from the corner of his eye. He always wore contacts now; there had been focus groups and notes that the nerdy intellectual stuff didn't play well in key markets. He thought he looked older, three years of sleepless nights and deception catching up with him. He saw it in his eyes. He'd think of Jon, wonder if his hair was even grayer in life than it appeared on screen. He'd wonder how much of that had to do with him.

When that happened, when the startling sight of his own reflection seized his concentration, he'd stop speaking, sometimes mid-word, or miss responding to something Jon had said. Jon would call his name from thousands of miles away; bring Stephen back from where his thoughts had wandered. He'd remember where he was, remember that all they ever talked about now was business, remember what he wasn't supposed to say. Remember that he had to act like everything was fine, keep going; it's all they had left.

Stephen kept working. One season down, the summer came and he tried to reintroduce himself to his family. He tried to sleep. The constant taste of fire borne on the desert air gave him headaches.

When Jon's son was born, Stephen called to congratulate him. His voice cracked when he left the message. He blamed it on the air, blamed the nausea on the air too.

When Stephen was nominated for an Emmy and his show was renewed for half a season, Jon called to congratulate him and promised they'd catch up. Stephen wished him luck for the convention coverage, asked about the baby. Jon laughed, said that it was a good thing he'd been in training his whole life for how to work on no sleep, said that taking the show on the road wouldn't be the same without him.

When Stephen hung up, he wondered who the hell these two people were and how, exactly, they had become complete strangers.

*

When Jon saw Stephen in person for the first time in over a year, the first thing he noticed was that his smile never quite reached his eyes. Even after his name was announced and he went to the stage to collect his award, his smile bright as he looked in Jon's direction and thanked him, Jon could tell that something was missing.

He tracked Stephen down at an after party, cornered him, led him outside with a hand between his shoulder blades and not a single word.

"Hi Jon, long time no see!" Stephen said, cheer laced with a sharp, bitter edge.

Jon's hand tightened to a fist on Stephen's tuxedo jacket, their bodies bumping together as they fought against the crowd. The cooling midnight air was a relief when they finally burst outside. Jon guided Stephen to the first car he saw, suddenly tasting fire at the back of his throat.

Stephen shifted the Emmy from hand to hand, unsure what to do with it as Jon nudged him into the back seat of the limousine. Jon took it from him and Stephen looked up, surprised.

"Where are yours?"

"I think Ben took them," he said.

"You better make sure –"

"I'll get 'em back, it's fine. Get in."

Stephen slid in and Jon sat across from him, resting the statuette on the floorboard. He gave the driver an address and the door closed behind them, sealing them in. They drove, the streets humming on mute outside the tinted windows.

"Must be nice to be able to hand them off. I guess not everyone needs one of them to try to keep their job," Stephen said dryly. "I have to hang on to mine. It's proof. Got my name on it and everything."

"If only the academy voters had Neilsen boxes," Jon muttered.

"Yeah. And actually watched TV instead of just the screeners." Stephen sighed. "What are you doing, Jon?"

Jon watched him as headlights and streetlights shifted over his face. "You're not happy," he said.

Stephen laughed. "I'm fucking fantastic."

"On the phone, you – you always sounded like you were okay, I thought you were – "

"I just… I hate this city. I never wanted to end up here. I purposely never wanted to end up here." Stephen poked at the Emmy with his foot, watched it rock back and forth on its base. "It's not that I'm not grateful for everything you did to set me up with this thing – "

"Stephen, don't," Jon pleaded. He couldn't hear it. He needed blame, not credit.

"No, shut up and let me say this. We've barely – I haven't been able to talk to you, y'know? And I need to say this." He took a deep breath. "I do appreciate what you've tried to do for me. The way things have turned out has just been frustrating. And I understand why you've pulled back. This whole thing was an accident. Or a mistake, I don't know. All of it was… but… I love you for trying." He stopped, quickly rubbed his eyes.

Jon reached over, touched his knee. "Stephen, I'm sorry, if I'd known – "

"What? If you'd known, what? What could you have done? What _would_ you have done?"

"I fucked up," Jon said simply.

"Yeah. We both did."

Jon looked out the window, shutting his eyes, watching the light play over his eyelids. "I'll… we'll take you back. Any time you need to, any time you want to. Just come home. There's always a place for you," he said quietly.

Stephen laughed. "That feels a little too much like failure, Jon. Taking a giant step backwards? Taking the long way around to end up in the same place, crawling back with my tail between my legs? While everyone's watching?"

Jon knew that Stephen had set him up for the easy joke, because that's what they did, that's what they used to do. He could've said 'But nobody's watching, remember?' but he didn't, instead said earnestly, "It isn't. If it's what makes you happy, it isn't."

"Doing what made us happy didn't work out that well before," Stephen murmured. He shook his head and gave Jon a small smile. "No. You cast a long shadow, Jon. I think… going back is harder than staying, at this point."

"I miss you, you know," Jon said suddenly, surprising himself.

Stephen smirked. "No, you don't. We were making each other miserable. That's why I'm here, isn't it?"

Jon regarded him carefully. "No. I think we make ourselves miserable, more than anything. We're still doing it. Fuck geography, it's still happening."

"Yeah."

They had fallen into a not-quite-comfortable silence when the car stopped and the door opened. 

"You don't – you don't want to get a drink or something? We can just talk, or, or – "

Stephen interrupted before Jon could find a way to finish that thought. "No, I – I stayed out too long as it is. I have an early call tomorrow. Table read's at nine, and, y'know, the traffic…"

"Yeah, okay. But… we'll talk soon, all right?"

"Sure, Jon," Stephen said with a half-smile, clearly not believing him.

"I mean it, man. Any time you need it."

Stephen bumped his fist on Jon's knee. "Have a safe trip back."

"Right." Jon said. He slid over the seat, climbed out of the car, turned back before the driver could close the door. "Congratulations, Stephen. I – I'm really proud of you."

Stephen just nodded. Jon turned away with an apologetic smile for the driver for making him stand there so goddamn long while they fumbled over their words and each other.

The limousine door slammed shut as Jon went in to the hotel. He didn't watch the car pull away, back into traffic, didn't see Stephen go.

It was the last time they spoke before the accident.

*

The Emmy couldn't save him. The network pulled the show half way through shooting their next twelve weeks. They didn't try another timeslot change. They didn't let them finish the contracted run. Didn't air the two episodes already in the can. Just pulled it. Gone.

Stephen's first thought was to call Jon, but he dismissed it when his second thought was what Jon would say. Again, Jon would tell him that he could come back to New York, and again, Stephen would have to contemplate how humiliating that would be. And if he did go back, what then? Fall back into old habits with Jon? Try to work together with things the way they were? Neither option was a possibility he wanted to entertain.

So he didn't call. He figured Jon knew about the cancellation. That Jon had probably known before him. 

He didn't call. He got in his car and just drove. He drove until the freeways were almost empty, as empty as they ever got, anyway. He drove until he felt like he was flying, his gaze on the starless sky, the shattered glass strewn across the concrete catching the light like a new constellation.

*

Two in the morning and Nathan was finally asleep, nestled against Jon's chest, and Jon was terrified to move for fear of waking him again. He dropped his head against the back of the couch and watched CNN on mute through heavy-lidded eyes.

When he saw Stephen's picture, he thought he was dreaming. Then he saw some file footage, a red carpet thing from the Emmys, and a graphic with the words "accident" and "critical" and Stephen's name, he heard himself say, "Oh, shit," and felt himself sitting up straighter, grabbed the remote to turn up the volume while clutching his son tighter. He knew then that he was awake.

They had nothing to say and they kept saying it over and over again. Single vehicle accident, the loss of his show earlier today, we're not saying we know he tried to kill himself, but let's imply that anyway. 

Jon stood up on unsteady legs, calling out for his wife, his son stirring in his arms, and he didn't know how to hold him anymore, he was going to drop the baby, he could feel it, he was going to drop the baby and then his own legs were going to give out. He called Tracey's name again, pleading as he tried walking to the bedroom, Nathan starting to cry. Tracey stumbled out of bed, took the baby with panic in her eyes.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked.

"An accident," he said. When Tracey began to run her hands over Nathan's arms and legs, to feel his head, he dumbly realized that she thought their son was the cause of Jon's distress. "No, no, he's fine, the baby's fine, it's – on the news, something happened to Stephen. I, I don't… Fuck, I have to call somebody."

Tracey visibly relaxed and held Nathan to her chest, rubbing his back, trying to calm him again. "Jon? What happened?"

"I don't know, they said there was a… a car accident, something, Christ, I can't call Evie – "

"I'm sure she could use the support," Tracey said gently.

"No, no, I can't – do that." He felt tears stinging at his eyes, swiped futilely at them.

Tracey touched his arm. "Jon? Is he alive?"

"It said critical. I… I'm sorry, I have to go, I have to find out –"

"Go."

Jon gave her one last apologetic look before he hit the phone. He called Stephen's manager, his agent, his publicist, someone from the network. But it was late, nobody knew anything. If his call didn't go unanswered then his questions did. 

He booked himself on the first flight out in the morning, finally caved in and called Evelyn before he boarded, dialing with shaking fingers. He was surprised when she answered, even more surprised when she sounded glad to hear from him. She said Stephen wasn't going to die. There was something about internal bleeding, a surgery, broken ribs and bruised lungs and a respirator. Cuts, bruises, a broken collarbone, concussion. But he wasn't going to die.

In spite of that, he spent the flight imagining the worst, imagining a second trip, to South Carolina, or back to New York, hell, maybe even to Chicago. He realized he had no idea where Stephen would want to be buried, wondered if that was something he should know, wondered what it meant that he didn't. They'd had so little time for each other to begin with, and the last, lost year weighed heavily on Jon's mind as he flew through the morning, chasing the sunrise. Eighteen months ago, Evie might have asked him to give a eulogy, and now… he didn't know his place. He didn't know what he would've said in either case, what he could've said. 

All he knew was that he deserved every airless, tortured, panicked second he spent trapped on that flight. It was his fault Stephen was in Los Angeles in the first place. It was his fault this had all happened.

*

It was three days before Stephen was moved out of intensive care and into his own room and Jon was allowed to see him. Evelyn left them alone, pitied Jon his seventy-two hours of loitering in the halls, living only on verbal assurances that Stephen was going to survive.

She left them alone, the door shutting quietly behind her. Jon sat in the chair by Stephen's bed, and Stephen tried to speak.

"It's okay," Jon said quickly, his eyes lingering on the dark bruises over Stephen's chest, touching his cheek, just above the oxygen tube. "I know it hurts to talk, you don't have to try to say anything."

"It was an accident," Stephen rasped. "Not on purpose. I fucked up. Stupid."

Jon gave him a small smile. "I know, Stephen. I know you wouldn't. You're… I'm just so fucking happy that you're okay."

"Sorry about the show," Stephen said.

"Stop talking," Jon chided gently. " _I'm_ sorry. About… everything. You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't have ever – I could've kept you in New York, and I didn't, and you need to come home." He took a deep breath, a dam breaking inside him, trying to keep his head above the flood. "I know you can't, for a while, and you won't be able to work for a while, but… fuck, man, even if you never fucking speak to me again, you can't stay here. You can't be happy here."

Stephen's eyes closed, and when they opened they were glassy with tears. 

Jon began beating himself up all over again. "Fuck, I shouldn't – we can talk later, Stephen, please don't cry, it'll be harder to breathe –"

Stephen cut him off by grasping his hand. He spoke slowly. "I think I could've been happy if you were with me."

"But…" Jon frowned, staring down at him. "We can't do this again. I… I love you. But we can't."

"Doesn't mean I don't still need you," Stephen whispered.

Jon touched Stephen's hair; the only part of his body that Jon could be sure wouldn't hurt. He put his mouth to Stephen's ear and murmured, "Come home. We can start again; pretend like we never knew each other."

Stephen gave him a small, tired smile. "Can't. You're a bad actor."

Jon laughed, and wiped his eyes. 

Stephen's smile briefly gained some strength before it faded again. "We can't get away with anything."

"I know, Stephen. I know."

"I'm tired, Jon. You should go. Go home. I'll come back, when I can."

"I'm not leaving until I know you're safe."

"'M fine. I'll be all right. Other people need you too."

Jon sighed. "Okay, okay. But I want you to call me the second you get out of here. And at least once a week until you get to New York."

Stephen's eyes fluttered closed. "Yessir."

Jon smirked, squeezed Stephen's hand, and risked a kiss to his forehead.

"Thanks for coming, Jon," Stephen murmured.

"Any time."

There was a twitch across Stephen's brow, like he wanted to refute that claim but lacked the strength. He was silent, and Jon watched his chest rise and fall and checked the spikes and waves on the EKG just to make sure he was alive.

That's where Evie found him almost two hours later.

*

Jon stayed in Los Angeles for another day after finding out where the accident happened.

He rented a car and drove to the stretch of freeway early in the morning, long before the rush hour wave. They had said it was lucky the car hadn't flipped, that Stephen had been speeding, must've swerved to avoid something and overcorrected, went right into the wall on the side of the freeway. He was lucky.

Jon put his hazards on and pulled over when he saw the scorch marks along the wall, the grooves cut into the stone, the long scrapes of metallic hunter green paint. He got out and walked along the wall, broken glass crunching under his feet, long after the wreckage had been cleaned up.

He walked against the traffic to check, walked back and checked again until he was sure.

There were no tire marks leading to the impact site. There was no way to know if Stephen had hit the brakes before he crashed.

Jon ran his hand over the gouges in the wall, swore he could smell gasoline and blood and fire, could taste dirt at the back of his throat. They had said Stephen was lucky, and he silently thanked whatever that luck was.

He got in the car and pulled back onto the road, began driving to the airport. 

He'd go home, and wait for Stephen to call. And when he did, Jon would answer the phone like he hadn't been waiting at all, like the call was unexpected. A stranger on the other end of the line, a friend he had yet to meet.

They'd tear this down, their transient, temporary space. They'd tear it down, burn it out, and start to build again.


End file.
